Monday 30 July 2012

And now for something completely different 'VJ' Video & Lighting

photo courtesy of Kahlia Litzow

I'm relatively new to running visuals, in fact I only started back april this year.
I play in a Band Fort Kilsby, and we wanted to integrate visuals into the show, so all I did for the first show was edit a bunch of video together that seemed to work with the music, and saved them all to a DVD with chapter marks for each track. Then running the dvd from stage (Above), using the remote to change to the next track.
But that was just the start. That worked well enough but I wanted to have more control and be more interactive between live instruments and the video content, which led me to using Resolume Arena . This gave us quite a large range of options from audio controllers through to midi controlled content and effects etc.
I gathered as much info as I could and ran a test at the Hydrofunk records 15th Birthday gig at Coniston Lane in May of this year. (Below) 
Photo Courtesy of Tezza's Pix
Apart from the odd glitch here and there (on my part) the night went pretty well,
and it now back to the drawing board gathering more gear like multi port midi interfaces etc. The aim is to have a full projection mapped show, controlled by live instruments , live drums, MPC, Keys etc, which Im currently working on for the next shows.
The venue liked the idea for having live visuals and were already looking into the possibility when we did the Hydrofunk show. So now I get the opportunity to experiment with new concepts and test the system in a live environment on a regular basis.
Hydrofunk show Resolume test setup
Below is a clip from the K+Lab show last friday at Coniston Lane. (Mind the volume, I had to use on board mic and its quite distorted. )
Although On this night, my NEW video card decided to pack it in, leaving me with 1 video out. And after 2 hours of troubleshooting, all I managed to do was have the program running on the projector screen with the output displayed over the top of that. Leaving me with no visual control over the content and effects. The audio controllers on the machine also failed, so I was left with minimal content, and basic control of the program using a Behringer BCF2000 fader midi controller. All Video and lighting in the video below is manually controlled leaving me with 2 cramped hands by the end of the night. But I still think I managed to pull it off in the end.
M.